MEP's daughter joins mum at work in the European Parliament

It is always good to see young people taking an interest in politics, and Victoria Ronzulli is younger than most.

Victoria was only six weeks old when she first attended a debate in the European Parliament with her mother, Italian MEP Licia Ronzulli.

 

Now 18 months old, the little girl is participating more actively, even raising her hand to vote with her mum, who is a member of the environment, health and food safety commission.

The relatively relaxed rules allowing women to take their babies to work have allowed female MEPs to juggle their dual responsibilities as mothers and professionals. During the previous legislature Danish MEP Hanne Dahl took her baby into the weekly meetings of the conference of presidents on several occasions, and the German MEP Hiltrud Breyer regularly breast-fed at meetings of the environment committee.

Ronzulli said that while bringing her daughter to Parliament was not an intentionally political gesture, she hopes that she has drawn attention to the difficulties experienced by working mothers.

"It was not a political gesture. It was first of all a maternal gesture – that I wanted to stay with my daughter as much as possible, and to remind people that there are women who do not have this opportunity [to bring their children to work], that we should do something to talk about this".